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Let’s celebrate a game-changing teacher, other unique Africans

Tuesday April 09 2019
tabichi

Kenyan teacher Peter Tabichi (centre) holding up the Global Teacher Prize (GTP) trophy after winning the US$ 1 million award during an official ceremony in Dubai presented by Australian actor Hugh Jackman (C-L) and attended by the Dubai Crown Prince Hamdan bin Mohammed Al-Maktoum (C-R) on March 24, 2019. PHOTO | AFP | GLOBAL EDUCATION AND SKILLS FORUM

By ALICE WAIRIMU NDERITU

Three hours before the announcement of the winner of the annual Global Teacher Prize on Sunday March 24, Lawrence Tabichi, his daughter Josepha Nyamboka and I conversed at the lobby of the Atlantis hotel in Dubai.

The prize was part of the Global Education and Skills Forum themed “Who is changing the world?”

Mzee Tabichi’s son, Peter, a teacher at Keriko Mixed Day Secondary School was on the shortlist to win the prize of $1 million.

Father and daughter were apprehensive but hopeful. It seemed likely that Peter would win the prize, I said.

Peter had a compelling story of outstanding contributions to the teaching profession. At a personal level it was obvious Peter was genuine and passionate, his face lighting up as he spoke of his students.

Have you prepared Peter to manage expectations of the money if he wins? I asked.

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“As the only African in the shortlist” Mzee Tabichi said, “If my son wins this prize he will, like Wangari Maathai, bring great honour to Kenya and Africa. I am a retired teacher, Peter is a teacher, Josepha is a teacher—we are a family that loves teaching. Money cannot change my son.

“He left a well-paying job in a private school to work with the poor. How I wish he wins so that the world can witness what he will do.”

As Mzee Tabichi spoke, it dawned on me that from the weekly barrage of news on corruption, it was difficult to believe that people like Peter still existed.

At the ceremony, we listened spellbound as the MC, Grammy Award winner actor Hugh Jackman, holding Peter and looking into his eyes, emotionally reeled out an unscripted list of Peter’s achievements.

Peter got by on only 20 per cent of his salary, giving 80 per cent to the poor; produced spectacular results from his students, many orphans or from poor backgrounds, raising university enrolment in difficult circumstances; visited low-performing students at home for tutoring; during electoral violence, made his classroom a safe space for all ethnicities, mentored students to invent a device allowing visually impaired and deaf people to measure objects.

His students had won a Royal Society of Chemistry award for generating electricity from plant extracts.

His class has also qualified for the International Science and Engineering Fair in Arizona, USA. Peter had told him, Jackman said, that his flight to Dubai marked the first time he had been on a plane.

From a list of 10,000 applications, Hugh Jackman announced Peter Tabichi as a change makerwinner of the annual Global Teacher Prize to thunderous applause from the audience of 2,000 from 140 countries.

Peter reached into the pocket of his Franciscan friar’s robes, drew out a handwritten speech, began to read, paused, looked around the vast room and said “My father inspired me to teach. He is here today. Father, please come forward”.

There were few dry eyes in the room when Peter said his mother died when he was 11 and thanked his father for teaching him good values.

Former Kenya Wildlife Services Director Dr Julius Kipn’getich effected change through kuchagua (identifying people, issues, mechanisms to enable change) kusafisha (cleaning workplaces, creating order, isolating and managing resistance to change) kupanga (leadership and prioritizing), kufundisha (capacity development) and kudumisha (institutionalizing for continuity)

Kenyan Roy Allela invented smart gloves converting sign language movements into audio speech in real time.

William Kamkwaba from Malawi, with only primary school education, built a wind turbine using local materials and a water pump, supplying the first drinking water in his village.

Ory Okolloh, a Kenyan, helped create Ushahidi, recording eyewitness accounts of violence, as it happens, using text messages and Google Maps.

Kelvin Doe, a 15-year-old Sierra Leonean, taught himself to build working generators with scrap, batteries and an FM Radio Transmitter.

A book and a documentary on Peter Tabichi's life would help in impacting his father's values on a greater number of people. They don't make them like Mzee Tabichi anymore.

Wairimu Nderitu is the author of Beyond Ethnicism: Exploring Ethnic and Racial Diversity for Educators, and Kenya: Bridging Ethnic Divides. E-mail: [email protected]

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